Gervais beats his own podcast record

Ricky Gervais is claiming to have beaten his own world record for the most popular webcast.

The Office star’s free weekly podcast secured a place in this year’s Guinness Book of World Records with an average of 261,670 downloads per episode in its first month.

But by the time the series ended in February this year, the show had more than doubled its audience, to 541,329 downloads a week.

However, figures have not been made available for the number of listeners who continued to subscribe once Ricky and co-presenters Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington began to charge around £1 for each downloads.

The new figures came in too late to make it into print in this year's edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.

Gervais said: ‘I’m in the middle of filming Extras with some of the biggest stars on the planet; however none of them can compete with the little bald Manc who I produce the podcast with.’

The first series of the podcast will now be released on CD in October – and a new series will available on iTunes and Audible.co.uk in August.

The ‘little bald Manc’s’ book, The World of Karl Pilkington, is out on September 18. Click here to preorder.

Published: 22 Jun 2006